第二次摩哈赤战役

Background

The Great Turkish War began in July 1683 with an attack on Vienna by the Ottoman army. The siege was broken by the Battle of Vienna on 12 September, won by the combined forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, under the overall command of the King of Poland, John III Sobieski, who led the Polish forces. From September the initiative passed to the Imperial troops. In the following years the Imperial Habsburg armies under Charles of Lorraine drove the Ottomans back, conquering many fortresses (such as Esztergom, Vác, Pest). After the Battle of Buda they laid siege to and took over the former Hungarian capital of Buda. At the end of 1686 the Ottomans made peace overtures; however, the Habsburgs saw a chance to conquer the whole of Hungary and the overtures were rejected.

In April 1687 it was decided in Vienna that further military action should be taken. The main army (of about 40,000 troops) under the command of Duke Charles of Lorraine proceeded along the River Danube to Osijek on the River Drava, while another army of about 20,000 men under the command of Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria moved along the River Tisza to Szolnok and towards Petrovaradin. In the middle of July the two imperial armies met on the Danube and either marched overland or along the Drava to Osijek.

Battle

On the morning of 12 August the Duke of Lorraine decided to move to Siklós, because the position and the hard ground there made it more appropriate as a battleground. The Habsburg right wing moving westward began to march through a densely forested area. Sari Süleyman Paşa decided that this was just the chance he was waiting for. He ordered an attack with his entire army on the Imperial army's left wing, which under Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria was still in its earlier position, and which according to the Habsburg battle plan was also to start marching west. The Ottoman army caught the Imperial army near Nagyharsány and the nearby Nagyharsány Hill, with its heavily wooded steep slopes. Their cavalry, consisting of 8,000 Sipahis, tried to outflank this Habsburg army wing from the left. The commander of the wing, the Elector of Bavaria, immediately sent a courier to the Duke of Lorraine, informing him that this wing was under threat. Orders were given and sent quickly and positions were taken immediately to resist the attack of the superior Ottoman forces, which had twice the number as the Imperial forces. The Habsburg infantry held their position, and Gen. Enea Silvio Piccolomini with some of his cavalry regiments successfully counterattacked and stopped the advance of the Ottoman Sipahi cavalry.

The Ottoman Grand Vizier was surprised by this unexpectedly fierce resistance and ordered the cessation of the Ottoman attack.……

Aftermath

After the battle, the Ottoman Empire fell into deep crisis. There was a mutiny among the troops. Grand Vizier Sari Suleyman Pasa became frightened that he would be killed by his own troops and fled from his command, first to Belgrade and then to Constantinople. When the news of the defeat and the mutiny arrived in Constantinople in early September, Abaza Siyavuş Pasha was appointed as the commander and as the Grand Vizier. However, before he could take over his command, the whole Ottoman army had disintegrated and the Ottoman household troops (Janissaries and Sipahis) started to return to their base in Constantinople under their own lower-rank officers. Even the Grand Vizier's regent in Constantinople was frightened and hid. Sari Suleyman Pasa was executed. Sultan Mehmed IV appointed the commander of Bosphorus Straits Köprülü Fazıl Mustafa Pasha as the Grand Vizier's regent in Constantinople. He consulted with the leaders of the army that existed and other leading Ottoman statesmen. After these, on 8 November it was decided to depose Sultan Mehmed IV and to enthrone Suleiman II as the new Sultan.

The disintegration of the Ottoman army allowed Imperial armies to rapidly traverse and reconquer large swathes of flatland and its towns before subsequently reaching more mountainous areas.……